Hi everyone, after 10 months of Primal-ness, I finally decided to try cooking with tallow. I ordered some grass fed beef tallow with my meat CSA this month. I picked it up today and it looks like 3 pounds of fat in a sealed bag. I looked through the archives to try and find out if there is any specific way to thaw it but I can't find anything. Could someone help me out here? Can I thaw it out, keep some out and refreeze the rest? Also, this is probably a very silly question but when I ordered it on the website it said tallow and the label on the bag says "beef fat". I'm assuming they are one in the same but thought I'd check it out with you guys. I'm excited cook with it. I look forward to any help. Thanks!

01-05-2013, 06:32 PM

Drumroll

Lots and lots of primal-approved deep fat frying. ;)

It'll keep great for about six months or so, maybe a bit longer, just in the fridge alone. Plenty of time to figure out what to do with it if you still have some left when that period is over.

01-05-2013, 06:35 PM

Urban Forager

I freeze my tallow. Depending on the bag you may be able to run some hot water over the bag and then pour off the melted portion into a glass jar. Tallow even at room is very hard, if you defrost the whole thing you'll probably have to chip some off with a knife in order to put it into a smaller container. BTW you'll know if you have "fat" rather than tallow if it is soft, like the fat you see on a roast or steak. You're pretty fortunate to have a CSA that offers tallow.

01-05-2013, 06:53 PM

Paleobird

Yeah, there is a difference between fat and tallow. You need to figure out which one you have. Fat is what is sliced off the beast raw. Tallow is what you get when you take the fat and render it in a pan. Tallow keeps much better.

If what you have is fat, I would suggest thawing it all and rendering it. Then you can re-freeze in small containers.

01-06-2013, 08:25 AM

sbhikes

Tallow will look like white butter. If that's what you have, technically it can be stored without refrigeration or freezing since there is no water in it. I keep it in the fridge. Use it for cooking. I make pemmican sometimes and either keep it in the cupboard or freezer.